CREW: At Belhaven, we added a new crew member. Norma was astonished to find what she had been asking for—a stuffed pelican, one of the funny looking seabirds that proliferate the Southern East Coast. We started seeing so many of them at the southern part of the Chesapeake, but she could not believe that one shop owner at the Mermaid Shop in Belhaven, NC actually had a beanie baby pelican. Allen named him Beau, and the picture shows crew celebrating their new member. While I get ahead of myself, little did Allen know that we also picked up a stowaway also at Belhaven, but more about that later.
ORIENTAL: After we left Belhaven, NC, we motored and sailed to a town called Oriental, small town fanatic about dragons. The name has cute history about a town leader’s wife seeing a nameboard of a ship the USS Oriental (a ship sunk in a storm off the Outer Banks in 1862). It seems the town was glad to change its original name –Smith Creek—from being so mundane. Everywhere one can find remnants of Captain John Smith along the coast, as well as dragons in Oriental.
Pictured is the town mascot in the middle of the pond near Oriental’s famous coffee shop The Bean. Anyway, there we met up with friends (Lee and Wendy on Further) from our previous rally to Maine. With them, we met Bob and Samara on My Pleasure and Alayne and Russ on Nutmeg. It was nice to socialize with other boaters for a spell, and we are very likely to run into them again since we are all headed to Florida and thereabouts.
BEAUFORT: Knowing a rainstorm was coming on Sunday, we headed next to Beaufort, the third oldest port (established 1709) in North Carolina that has a deep channel open to the ocean. Beaufort is the home of the infamous Blackbeard whose ship remnants and history consume one fifth of the town’s really nice nautical museum. On our way, we encountered several pods of bottle-nosed dolphins when our little stowaway baby dolphin popped up and joined the crew.
Named Dolly, we now have a total of eight crew members, nine if we count Norma.
We planned to sit out the rainstorm here in Beaufort’s Docks marina with Wi-Fi, electricity, showers and which is central to the town. More to come on Beaufort.
The CREW LINES UP! Alfie and Chloe (puffins that we have had for years) oversee the two lines of crew: Melville the whale, Shelley the lobster, Ray the stingray, Beau the pelican, Dolly the baby dolphin stowaway, and Duke the lion found on Duke of Gloucester Street in Annapolis. Not only are they cuddly, but they also perform tricks and entertain each other (and us!) in various ways. Above they are practicing lining up. It will be interesting to see if any more crew show up on our travels south. Hmmnnnnn….